Cabling and synchronization of camera and intracellular recordings with NI device

Hello,

in our project we do intracellular recordings controlled with the USB-6363-NI device. We want to synchronise these recordings with a camera (Prime 95B).

To synchronize camera and recordings, we want to use a hardware trigger from the NI device to trigger the start of the camera. The trigger just initiates the start of a sequence of image acquisitions. Then each image is controlled by the internal timing generators of the camera.

So far, the camera is connected directly to the computer. The computer receives the images properly and gives the time points each frame was taken. Now I want to start camera and recordings at the same time.

My question concerns the wiring of the camera to the NI device and the commands in matlab.

How do I trigger the start of the camera via the NI device in matlab?

• I connected the trigger cable of the camera to the analog output plug in the NI device and do queueOutputData(s,stimulus) followed by startBackground(s). The stimulus variable is a matrix with 4 columns for each of the four analog output channels. In channel 1-3 I insert the stimulus and in channel 4 (where the trigger cable is plugged in) I inserted a vector with a 1 in the beginning followed by zeros (e.g. 100000....)
• is this the right approach to insert a vector like this in the channel where the trigger cable is?
• is the "1" in the beginning enough to elicit the trigger / a TTL pulse? Or does this number needs to be higher (maybe 5V as a standard TTL pulse)?
• is it correct to plug the trigger cable into the analog output plug?

I appreciate any comment or helpful link, thanks in advance!